Marco Antonio Etcheverry was one of Bolivia’s greatest ever footballers.
Nowadays, El Diablo is a sporting ambassador for DC United and a qualified coach who currently works with the USA’s youth teams.
Bolivia had just achieved something nobody had ever done before: they had beaten Brazil in a qualifying match. On the road to the 1994 FIFA World Cup™ in the USA, the Bolivian national team boasted a fine crop of players headed by Etcheverry or El Diablo [The Devil] as he is known to fans across the American continent on account of his devilish gambeta, or ability to hold off opponents while on the ball. It was that crop of players that defeated the future World Cup winners 2-0 in July 1993. The Hernando Siles stadium in La Paz experienced one of its most glorious moments when Etcheverry scored the opening goal.
Two months later, Bolivia and their talisman Etcheverry sealed their historic qualification for USA ’94. El Diablo’s World Cup campaign was to be short-lived as a sending-off barely five minutes into the opening match against Germany sidelined Etcheverry from the competition. Nevertheless, his ability did eventually make its mark on North America.
Two years later, when Major League Soccer (MLS) was launched in the USA, he was one of the foreigners who were invited to play in the inaugural season. “I was one of the pioneers of that league together with Valderrama, Donadoni and Jorge Campos. It was hard work; we really beavered away: we travelled everywhere to be with the fans and sign autographs here and there in the hope that Americans would learn to love the sport,” recalls Etcheverry, now with shorter hair but still the same elegant and deliberate way of talking. Etcheverry is wearing a tracksuit with “US Soccer” emblazoned on it in recognition of the new position he has taken up. After retiring as a player in March 2006, he toured the USA as an ambassador and youth team coach of DC United, the club for which he played for almost a decade. He continues to tour the country now, but as assistant to Dutchman Thomas Ronden, the coach of the USA U-20 team.
Despite Etcheverry’s professed love for his country, he acknowledges that the USA has given him financial stability and the status he deserves. He certainly did his bit by committing himself to MLS when many predicted disaster for the new undertaking. Twelve years on from his arrival in Washington DC, he is able to say that he made the right decision: “When I first came here, there weren’t any pitches. On top of that, no stadiums had been built for football. Now as you drive along you see a lot of football pitches and they are always in use. Young people love football! There’s a real passion for the game. Everyone in the USA went crazy over Beckham’s arrival. People like Cuauhtemoc Blanco, Guillermo Barros Schelotto and Juan Pablo Angel also came over here, players who provide encouragement and improve the level of football.”

In many ways, the Munich air crash was the making of Manchester United. Not only did it spark renewed determination by the club’s management and players to succeed in Europe, it also heralded a period of development at Old Trafford which continues to this day.
When Old Trafford opened for business on 19 February 1910, a reporter for the Sporting Chronicle described the new stadium as “the most handsome, the most spacious and the most remarkable arena I have ever seen. As a football ground it is unrivalled in the world.”
Designed by the famous Scottish architect, Archibald Leitch, who also designed stands at Hampden Park, Glasgow Rangers and Tottenham Hotspur, Old Trafford cost GBP 60,000 to build and consisted of three huge terraces with a seated South Stand under cover.
Disaster struck during World War II, however, when the South Stand was heavily damaged during a bombing raid by Hitler’s Luftwaffe, and for a while the club was forced to play home matches at Maine Road, the stadium of arch-rivals Manchester City. But Old Trafford was quickly rebuilt and United resumed playing therein 1949.
Little changed before the Munich air disaster, after which the club started to broaden its horizons. The advent of European competition had introduced a new dimension to English football and spectators began to demand better facilities.
United led the way in giving fans value for money and the first cantilever-roofed stand came in 1964 with the opening of the United Road (North Stand). No longer would spectators have to peer at the action from behind old-fashioned pillars. With the new North Stand came Britain’s first executive boxes and in 1973 the cantilever was extended to encompass the East Stand. Old Trafford set the benchmark for the modern-day football ground.
But there were problems, too, and the hooliganism afflicting British football during the early 1970s led to United’s stadium becoming the first in England to have pitch-side perimeter fencing erected to combat crowd trouble.
The stadium’s development continued, though, and by the end of the 1980s three of the four sides had cantilever roofs. Still to be developed was the world-famous West Stand – otherwise known as the Stretford End, the proud home behind the goal of a heaving mass of 20,000 standing United fans who were renowned as being amongst the loudest in Britain. Legend has it that the roar of the crowd from this section of Old Trafford was louder than a Boeing 747 taking off.
But the Stretford End’s days were numbered following the Hillsborough disaster of 1989, when 96 Liverpool supporters died after being crushed by overcrowding at an FA Cup semi-final. The report which followed recommended the abolition of all standing terraces and, in line with government policy, Old Trafford soon became all-seater. Capacity fell overnight from almost 60,000 to 44,000, but far from halting the club in its tracks, the challenge of redeveloping the stadium gained new momentum. Between 1996 (when the impressive three-tier North Stand we see today opened) and 2006, Old Trafford’s capacity has risen incrementally to 76,212.
A total of GBP 114 million has been spent by the club on stadium development over the past 14 years and ManU captain Gary Neville, a professional at Old Trafford during all of that time, remains in awe of his surroundings. “The roar of the crowd as you edge closer to the pitch, the tunnel is where it hits you – you’re about to play for the Reds at Old Trafford,” he said.
For players and spectators alike, Old Trafford truly is the Theatre of Dreams.

Most have been joyous occasions, but there has been tragedy too. On 19 February 1958, Manchester United played Sheffield Wednesday in a fifth-round FA Cup tie at Old Trafford just 13 days after eight United players had lost their lives in the Munich air crash. Christened the “Busby Babes”, the team built by legendary manager Sir Matt Busby had stopped off at Munich en route home from a European Cup match in Belgrade. The whole nation mourned as the scale of a tragedy which claimed the lives of 23 people unfolded.
Sir Bobby Charlton, one of England’s most celebrated football figures, was aboard when the plane crashed on take-off and was at Old Trafford 13 days later to see a makeshift Manchester United team play. The emotion of the night remains crystal clear 49 years on. Charlton recalls: “When we arrived at the ground, the atmosphere was so extraordinary. Nearly 60,000 people seemed to be saying: ‘Whatever’s happened, we’ve just got to win.’ We won 3-0 and I went into the dressing-room afterwards and the emotion was so strong, I still feel it now. There were tears in my eyes, as there always are when I think of that day.”